I spent last weekend at my dad’s house – the house that we moved into when I was nine years old, and that for me defines the word “home” when you talk about going home for the holidays. The main reason for the visit was to help celebrate my nephew’s 13th birthday on Saturday, and to attend the rock concert he was performing in that same day. He’s been taking guitar lessons for about four years, and every three or four months, the school arranges [...]
The world has lost a gentle and wonderful man. Most of the world never knew him, of course, and has no idea what a treasure he was – or how much he will be missed, and by how many people. But I do. After being healthy, active, and extremely social well into his 80’s, my father fell victim to a number of health issues and incidents that kept him either in the hospital or in a care center since early November. He passed away at [...]
One of the gifts I received this Christmas was a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Betty Boop. I’ve always been a Betty Boop fan and collector, and I love doing jigsaw puzzles. One of my fond childhood memories is of sitting at a card table set up in the living room, working on jigsaw puzzles with my mom, dad, and sisters. I started the Betty Boop puzzle on the weekend after New Year’s Day, setting it up in our family room and working on it while [...]
I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres Saturday night. There was something ironic about going to a show set in a Russian village when the temperature right outside our own home was ten degrees below zero. Still, the story is one that warms the heart. Watching the show on Saturday night, I was fine until they got to the song, “Sunrise, Sunset.” That’s when I started to get a little choked up. I was at the theatre with my [...]
When I was very young, Santa Claus used to visit our house on Christmas Eve. Not in the middle of the night – leaving presents under the tree when we were nestled all snug in our beds – but early in the evening, when we were still up and wide awake. I remember one year when we needed to make a quick trip to the grocery store on Christmas Eve. We kids were distraught, afraid we might miss Santa’s visit. Although my mom assured us [...]
My dad, who just turned 86, fell in the shower not long ago. He banged up his elbow pretty badly and needed stitches. He then developed an infection, which did not respond to antibiotics, and ended up in the hospital having surgery on his arm. He’s now at a care center that provides rehab and therapy. So my husband, my sister and I decided to drive to Chicago over the Thanksgiving weekend and spend time with family there rather than celebrating the holiday here at [...]
I’m doing Thanksgiving a little differently this year. That doesn’t mean I’ll be making any changes to the traditional meal, or abandoning time-honored practices and customs that go along with the day. And it certainly doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking, talking, or writing about all of the people and things I am grateful for. What it means is that before I focus on the “thanks” part of Thanksgiving this year, I’m going to concentrate on the “giving” part. I want to spend time reflecting [...]
A childhood friend of mine passed away last week. He lived in the house across the street from us, in a small town where everybody knew everybody else, and most of your relatives lived nearby. My grandma and grandpa lived two doors up from his house, and his grandparents lived two doors up from mine. Our parents knew each other long before either of us was born, and are still good friends today. He was the oldest of three brothers, and I was the second [...]
My daughter called the other day. In addition to the things we normally talk about on the phone, she asked if I remembered how old she was when we first moved from the Chicago area – where my husband and I grew up and where both of our kids were born – to Roanoke, Virginia, the first of several moves that eventually landed our family in Minnesota. I couldn’t answer off the top of my head, so I had to stop and do some mental [...]
Some of the things I learned during this trip to Uganda: How to say “How are you?” “I’m fine,” and “Thank you” in Luo, the language of the Acholi tribe in Northern Uganda; What crocodile meat tastes like (better than boiled goat, in my opinion, but not as good as an ostrich burger); That wading in the Nile River is both humbling and refreshing; That a puppet waving from a bus window can make even stoic police and armed guards smile. Some of the things [...]